Film Freak Centraltag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-999282957331064452013-12-08T13:23:10-05:00TypePadInside Llewyn Davis (2013)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c019b0260d8cf970b2013-12-08T13:23:10-05:002013-12-08T13:26:02-05:00****/**** starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake written and directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen by Walter Chaw I love the Coen Brothers, despite my suspicion that most of their movies don't think much of me at all. What's often read as disdain for their characters I've read mainly as antipathy for their audience: I believe they like their characters just fine, it's just that they could give a shit about your opinion of what happens to them. I love the Coens for their literary acumen, for their fine ability to understand not simply the form of genre--and, in their adaptations, of authors--but the entire function as well. They don't just adapt Cormac McCarthy and Charles Portis novels, they adapt those writers' entire bodies of work. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a remarkable retelling of The Odyssey, for instance, because in addition to following the outlines of the poem, it adapts its themes and storytelling strategies; it's a dissection and a representation and glorious, of course. They return now to The Odyssey--or, at least, to the character of Odysseus--in Inside Llewyn Davis, a picture set in 1961, among the bohos and coffee shops of a...Bill ChambersSchool of Rock (2003) + Intolerable Cruelty (2003)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c019affbde8a0970c2013-10-02T23:01:00-05:002013-10-02T20:33:55-05:00SCHOOL OF ROCK **/**** starring Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman screenplay by Mike White directed by Richard Linklater INTOLERABLE CRUELTY **½/**** starring George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Cedric the Entertainer screenplay by Robert Ramsey & Matthew Stone and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen directed by Joel Coen by Walter Chaw Maverick filmmaker Richard Linklater takes a break from his experiments in narrative and philosophy to helm what is essentially a mélange of the most tried and true mainstream formulas: the underdog kids uplift (The Bad News Bears, et. al); the inspirational teacher uplift (Dead Poets Society, et. al); the slacker whose best friend is dating an uptight harridan uplift (Saving Silverman, et. al); the burnout loser makes good uplift (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, et. al); and the rebel who reforms a restrictive institution led by an icy task-mistress uplift (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, et. al). Not to say that School of Rock is without its merits, but the whiff of originality--which every Linklater films (and Mike White's, who wrote the script) has possessed to some degree or another up to now--is not among them. Dewey (Jack Black) is an exhausting ball of manic...Bill ChambersCrimewave (1986) - Blu-ray Disctag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c0192aa18859d970d2013-05-19T20:33:02-05:002013-05-19T20:45:59-05:00*½/****Image B- Sound C+ Extras A starring Louise Lasser, Paul L. Smith, Brion James, Reed Birney screenplay by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen & Sam Raimi directed by Sam Raimi by Walter Chaw Sam Raimi's sophomore picture Crimewave is a nightmare, a mess, a calamity of rare scope but also one possessed of a singular, maybe misguided but definitely committed, vision. It wants very badly to be a feature-length Three Stooges sketch or Warner Bros. cartoon (one of the early Tex Averys), and so the thing it most resembles is Joe Dante's segment of The Twilight Zone: The Movie, stretched to a truly sadistic length (a deceptively scant-sounding 83 minutes) and thrown together by misadventure, studio interference, and a lot of talented people who didn't know what they didn't know. It's so consistently and dedicatedly cross-eyed badger spit, in fact, that it eventually takes on the surreality of a Max Ernst gallery, or an acid trip in a travelling funhouse. It's deeply unpleasant, even as fans of Raimi and the Coen Brothers (who co-wrote the screenplay with Raimi) busily trainspot all the auteur signatures in double time. What Crimewave represents is that peculiar artifact of a film that should have...Bill ChambersBad Santa (2003) [The Unrated Version and Director's Cut] - Blu-ray Disctag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c017c348dad91970b2012-12-12T21:01:42-05:002012-12-12T19:40:41-05:00a.k.a. Badder Santa (The Unrated Version) */**** Image B Sound A- Extras B Bad Santa (Director's Cut) **/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras B starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, John Ritter screenplay by Glenn Ficarra & John Requa directed by Terry Zwigoff by Walter Chaw With a premise and producing credit for the Coen Brothers and direction by Ghost World's Terry Zwigoff, the film with the best pedigree of the season is Bad Santa, making its failure particularly depressing. Its tale of ace safecracker and dangerous drunk Willie (Billy Bob Thornton), brought on board an annual mall Santa scam by criminal mastermind Marcus (Tony Cox), isn't all that inventive upon closer scrutiny, with Zwigoff's interest in the peculiarities of loneliness exhibiting themselves this time as caustic to no end and displeasingly bitter. Worse, there are two shots in the film that appear to be direct cribs of Coen Brothers shots--the first a crash zoom into an alarm clock, the second a collapse by Willie identical to a shot of Frances McDormand falling into bed in Blood Simple; what alarms isn't the instinct to borrow from innovative filmmakers, but rather the feeling of desperation that flashy camera movements...Bill ChambersThe Big Lebowski (1998) - [Limited Edition] Blu-ray Disctag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c0176174f97e3970c2012-08-18T20:04:23-05:002012-08-18T20:06:18-05:00****/**** Image C+ Sound A Extras B starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi screenplay by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen directed by Joel Coen by Walter Chaw I think that once the book closes on the Coen Brothers, they'll be seen as the premier interpreters of our time: the best literary critics; the Mark Twains. I used to believe they were simply genre tourists on this mission to do one for every genre, but it becomes apparent with each new No Country for Old Men and True Grit unlocking each vintage Miller's Crossing and The Hudsucker Proxy that they were interpreting genres long before they took on specific pieces as a whole. Coming full-circle from the wry noir of Blood Simple and Fargo and presenting itself eventually as of a piece with a later Coen noir, The Man Who Wasn't There (just as A Serious Man is a companion piece to Barton Fink), The Big Lebowski serves as the transition point in that process while also moving the brothers from broad genre takedowns to a very specific kind of literary adaptation. That they would follow it up with O Brother, Where Art Thou?, their take on The...Bill ChambersAmerican Gangster (2007); I'm Not There (2007); No Country for Old Men (2007) + No Country for Old Men ['08 BD + 2-Disc Collector's Edition] - Blu-ray Discstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c016305c46bda970d2012-05-23T13:28:12-05:002012-05-23T13:32:56-05:00AMERICAN GANGSTER ***/**** starring Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cuba Gooding, Jr. screenplay by Steven Zaillian directed by Ridley Scott I'M NOT THERE ***½/**** starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere screenplay by Todd Haynes & Oren Moverman directed by Todd Haynes NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN ****/**** '08 BD - Image A+ Sound A+ Extras B- CE - Image A+ Sound A+ Extras B+ starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Kelly Macdonald screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen by Walter Chaw Consider the moment when an overly enthusiastic police search results in the demolition of a replica dresser commissioned by Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) for the Carolina plantation he's bought to house his extended family. In one canny instant, there's the suggestion that nothing ever changes: the things we lose in time we will always lose. The image Ridley Scott provides for us as he moves the Lucas clan into their new digs is loaded and dangerous, with a group of African-Americans walking up the lush green lawn of an antebellum plantation--usurpers of a corrupt...Bill ChambersThe Man Who Wasn't There (2001)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c016305a22444970d2012-05-18T11:34:21-05:002012-05-18T11:34:21-05:00****/**** starring Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, James Gandolfini screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen directed by Joel Coen by Walter Chaw The noir genre was born of discomfort with women in the workplace, the rise of cynicism, and a world polarized by international conflict (WWII). Its symbol, the hardboiled detective, became the projection of the collective paranoia about the ascent of globalism and the death of Pollyannaism. Women and foreigners are not to be trusted in the noir universe; information is slippery and expensive; and the solution of the puzzle more often than not points back to a rot at the heart of the detective. It is the Oedipus/identity trajectory, complete with a blasted plague land, a murder, its thinly veiled culprit (noir is typically invested in process, not mystery), the appearance of a femme fatale, and a solution involving mortal self-knowledge. The noir hero may save the day, but at the price of being betrayed by those he loves. He is impotent to avenge his fallen friends and lovers, and at the mercy of a larger corruption that is unalterable and serves only to further degrade individual confidence. Tellingly, a great many noir works in...Bill ChambersTrue Grit (2010)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a0168ea36d6b2970c0168eb929099970c2012-05-17T11:21:57-05:002012-05-17T11:21:57-05:00****/**** starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld screenplay by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Charles Portis directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen by Walter Chaw In exactly the same way they distilled the essence of Cormac McCarthy into an overwhelming, oppressive, animal nihilism in No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen have distilled the folksy Americana of Charles Portis into their adaptation of his True Grit. That gift for translation is what made The Odyssey into their collection of regional songs and stories O Brother, Where Art Thou?, what made their Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink (the two films, along with O Brother, that True Grit most resembles) so sure in their genre approximations. More than mimics, the Coens' genius is as interpreters and scholars, able to understand the thrust of not Preston Sturges, but of a Preston Sturges character--of not one book but, miraculously, a body of work. And though True Grit is as literal and faithful an adaptation of the novel as one could hope for, the brilliance of it is that it's captured the immersive feeling of Portis's prose. More than an adaptation, True Grit is...Bill Chambers